Lara Spencer's Promotion to 'GMA' Co-Host Could Make it the Most Female-Friendly Morning Show

Good Morning America, much like its sister show Live! With Michael and Kelly, has seen a lot of faces come and go over the years. Most of them were just temporary hosts filling in for one of the permanent seats, but the show lost Sam Champion in 2013 when he left for The Weather Channel and in March 2014 they also lost Josh Elliot to NBC Sports. Although Michael Strahan joined as a parttime correspondent, there was still that fulltime seat to be filled. If you had your fingers crossed that Good Morning America would take the opportunity to give more ladies visibilities, you were rewarded: Lara Spencer has been promoted to co-host.

ABC News chief James Goldson broke the news in an email to the ABC News division, praising Spencer as a "key member of our on-air team":

Lara Spencer... rejoined ABC three years ago – bringing her style, humor, sunny confidence, wonderful journalism and storytelling to GMA. Lara is clearly an essential ingredient in the success we have enjoyed and I am so pleased to announce that Lara has been elevated to co-host of the program along with Robin and George.

Spencer has been a staple of Good Morning America as their lifestyle anchor and her promotion couldn't come at a better time. The advancement of women in society is constantly in flux. For every victory in the form of Bechdel-Test passing films making more money at the box office, there's a step back in the form of petty critics attacking Kim Novak for her appearance at the Oscars. Spencer's promotion is not just a victory for her; it's a victory for women everywhere. She's joining Robin Roberts and George Stephanopoulos as the main co-anchors of GMA, which means that the morning show now has twice as many female anchors as it does male ones.

Of course, there's still plenty of time for that to change since there's been no word yet on who will be taking Spencer's place as GMA's lifestyle anchor, but even if they hire another male the gender imbalance will still be in the ladies' favor. The fact that that's still unusual enough to be considered an accomplishment when women make up over half of the population is mind-boggling in and of itself. After all, GMA's rival, The Today Show, has more male anchors than they do female ones. It's more common to see that, or an equal number of males and females, than it is to see women dominate a cast, whether it's on a morning show, on a television show, or in a movie. Spencer's promotion is just one step in the right direction, but as always we still have a long way to go toward equal representation.